Runners-Up Still in the Running

The game of second chances will be played tonight at the Pyramid in Long Beach when Rosary meets Torrance Bishop Montgomery in the Southern California Regional Division III championship game. Neither team won a section title this season. Bishop Montgomery was defeated by North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake in the Southern Section Division III-AA title game, and Rosary lost to Harvard-Westlake in the III-AA semifinals.

“Both of us are going for that second chance right now,” said Lisa Cooper, Bishop Montgomery’s coach. “It’s going to be an emotional game. I think the [section final] was really hard, and I don’t want to think about how hard it’s going to be [tonight], but I think both teams really want it at this point.”

The winner will advance to the state championship game next weekend in Sacramento. Bishop Montgomery is trying to defend the Division III state title it won a year ago. Rosary, which has never been to a state final, can do so by avenging a 69-56 loss to the Knights in last year’s section final.

If Rosary manages to win, it will go to the state final without winning a league or section title. The Royals advanced to the regional because the Southern Section has only one classification in Division III, and all four semifinalists were allowed to advance.

One major victory for the Royals came on Thursday in its victory at Harvard-Westlake, a week after losing to Harvard-Westlake in the section semifinals, 64-59. Why the difference?

The semifinal was played on a neutral court, Los Angeles Baptist. One of the baskets was a portable basket. It was the one the Royals were shooting at in the second half, when they lost a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter.

MAKING ROOM FOR ONE MORE

Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said there are no immediate answers to the lack of available seating for the Monarchs’ playoff games in the Southern California Regional.

Hundreds of would-be ticket buyers were turned away Thursday for Mater Dei’s game against Upland at Ocean View High’s gym after tickets sold out hours before game time.

But that apparently didn’t stop ticket sellers from issuing extra tickets. Fans not only jammed the bleachers, which seat about 2,000, but also stood along the baselines and knelt three- to four-deep behind both sidelines.

Law enforcement officers and announcers did their best to keep aisles clear in front of the bleachers. Fire officials said they were alerted to the standing-room-only crowd and responded as a precaution.

“Clearly, there are too many people in there,” said a fire official, who declined to give his name. “But we were called late in the game, and got here with less than three minutes to go. We decided to leave well enough alone.”

Mater Dei Principal Pat Murphy, who estimated the crowd to be about 2,200, said he did not believe safety was compromised.

“This is a pretty well-behaved crowd, they’re keeping aisles clear, the police have everything under control,” Murphy said.

Bigger facilities, such as the Bren Center, the Long Beach Pyramid and the Arrowhead Pond are expensive and difficult to schedule on short notice, McKnight said. The Pyramid cost $11,000 for a day-long tournament McKnight staged in February.

The Monarchs can’t play big playoff games at home because their gym seats about 1,000. They hope to play in a new 3,000-seat on-campus facility beginning with the 2003-04 school year.

TICKET PRICES

Tickets for today’s boys’ and girls’ Southern California Regional championship games at the Forum and the Pyramid of Long Beach are $30 for courtside, $15 for reserved, $10 for general admission and $8 for students, children and seniors.

THE QUICK AND THE DREAD

Troy’s season came to a brutal end in a 78-47 loss at Lynwood on Thursday in the second round of the Division I girls’ regional.

Troy, which lives and dies with its skin-tight defense, is quicker than most of its opponents, and Kianey Givens-Davis and Amanda Livingston present enough size inside that the Warriors are rarely at a noticeable size disadvantage.

But against Lynwood (28-2), Troy was neither quicker nor bigger.

“We [coaches] knew this would be our hardest game of the playoffs,” said Kevin Kiernan, Troy’s coach. “Lynwood was the toughest team for us to play this year because of the matchups. I think we match up better with [Harbor City] Narbonne, and I think [Ventura] Buena is a better team than Lynwood.

“We had bad matchups from the start. We couldn’t press, we didn’t want to zone. We were in no-man’s land. We were a step behind all night.”

Lynwood has been a step ahead of most opponents this season. Only twice has it played a game decided by fewer than 10 points, and both those games were losses.

Despite the loss, Kiernan, who resigned at midseason in a dispute with his principal, said he will return next season: “They’ll have to drag me away.”

STOP SIGN

Even though Brea Olinda was the third-seeded team in the Division II regionals, the Ladycats nearly pulled off a huge upset against second-seeded Lakewood Artesia on Thursday. Brea faced an uphill battle against the Pioneers (32-2), who became a state power this season behind two transfers from Bishop Montgomery, Cacie Pope and 6-foot-3 Lauren Ervin.

The Ladycats, playing without leading scorer Jackie Lord and forward Daveri Bonnewitz, were beaten, 46-43.

This will be the first time in 12 years that Brea hasn’t reached the regional final. In that span, Artesia became the first team outside Orange County to eliminate the Ladycats. Laguna Hills beat Brea in 1997, and Woodbridge beat the Ladycats the two seasons previous to that.

Brea won eight state titles in that streak; Woodbridge won two titles, and Laguna Hills one. Woodbridge lost its first appearance in the state finals in 1994 when it competed in Division II and Brea was in Division III; it was Woodbridge’s only loss of the season, 71-38, to Sacramento El Camino.

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Staff writers Ben Bolch and Rene Lynch contributed to this story.